Separation
by Darkwood
Summary: A take on the relationship between Duo and Heero, mostly post-EW.
1. I

**Title: **Seperation  
**Genre:** GW  
**Pairings:** 1x2  
**Rating:** PG

**A/N:** A short story I started work on the other night at 1 am after the opening of a show I'm teching for, nothing to special at the moment, but I sorta like it.

***

I'm on my way to see him. It must've been a good six years since I last saw Heero, but it doesn't feel like it's been that long. It never does, you know, and we've gone for long periods without seeing one another before. It always seems to be that I feel like I only saw him a few days ago, not nearly long enough to miss him when I'm on the verge of seeing him again.

When I'm not sure if or when I'll see him, it seems like ages.

The last time we met up after such a length of time it was at a conference. The world would never quite let us out of the lime light, even after we all proclaimed quite publicly that we had no wish to be exalted for all our various 'good deeds'. I think we are all of the mind that what we did during the war, despite our good intentions, was still just what every other soldier was doing. Killing and subversion are still murder, even if they are for a good cause, and I think we all knew, deep down, that what we were doing was just that. Murder.

Teenage hands stained with blood aren't the best things to bring hope to the millions they've just won the good way for. Since we didn't decimate the entire culture of our enemies, there was still quite a large group that would like to see us hung or summarily executed for what we did. I bet there still are, but somehow I can forget all of that when I see one of my comrades.

And yes, the others are just that to me, and more, but in strictly the loosest terms we are all that - comrades in arms. I can trust that when I go to visit Trowa or Wufei or Quatre that if someone raises a hand against me they will be there to back me up, however I handle it at the time. And God knows that Heero would kill whoever it was that tried to strike me, if they managed to do it, and probably for trying to do it as well.

But I digress.

As I was saying, the last meeting the two of us had was under similar circumstances. Out of the blue one day in the middle of December I got a phone call from Heero that was very short and to the point.

"I want to see you," he said.

"Heero?"

"What are you doing on Saturday, Duo?"

I knew it was him at that point. There had been no greeting when I picked up the phone, no pleasantries, no petty conversation. He has always been just like that, direct, to the point. It's one of the things I admire so much about him, that he can be like that… so straightforward. I find that I have a tendency to walk around things and hope that whoever I'm talking to just picks up on what I mean to get across to them. I mentioned it to Heero once and he said that it was probably just a cultural difference between the Japanese and American ancestry we have in opposition within us. I think I might have minded more if he wasn't holding me when he said it. His tone was the same blatant and obvious vocalization he always uses to explain things to me and everyone else, but there was a certain fondness to his tone that made me wonder if he meant it as bitingly as it came out at first. On further reflection I think he didn't.

"Nothing too special, I suppose, Heero."

"Well now you are. Meet me."

It wasn't so much a question as it was a statement. Deep down we both knew I'd be there, wherever it was that he wanted to meet, willing and up for whatever he decided we'd do. At twenty-two I had no qualms about myself or how I felt about Heero, and apparently he had none about whatever twisted relationship we shared because he kept it alive by keeping in touch with me.

After the wars he was harder to keep track of than that needle in the haystack, and after one time of freaking out about him supposedly 'leaving' me, I had gotten used to being the reliable one in whatever it was we were involved in.

He was the lead of the dance, but I always seemed to know the steps he was missing. He would call, for instance, but just say, "Come over." It took a while to get him to realize that I wasn't keeping tabs on his every movement and that he'd have to give me a location to come or go to. Or I'd show up and find that it was an unfurnished place we were going to spend time in… no food and no furniture other than a toilet and a kitchen stove and sink.

"For how long?"

That question had become an issue at that point as well because I'd landed a steady job and would have to possibly be calling off if this was to be an extended rendezvous. His end of the line was quiet for a while.

"Is that so important?"

"I've got a job to go to, Heero."

He seemed shocked by that, as though I could be a drifter like he was and live off of the stipends from the war smuggling we did. In retrospect I could've, but something just felt more right about spending time in my life tied down somewhere, especially after having such a listless adolescence and early teenage period.

The stability was something I very much needed in my life at that point, so I made an effort to attain it for myself. I had actually made a down payment on a house, only from my earnings at the jobs I'd had away from the Preventers and since the war. I decided I'd like to try to rely on myself and not what I had left over from being an illegally paid murderer.

I suppose that on the other hand, Heero was doing what he'd never had the chance to do before and live on the fly. I don't fault him, didn't then, and don't think I ever will. He had done something I'd always had a secret wish that he would do. He was a good friend of mine, despite whatever sordid relationship went on behind the scenes, and I always hated that he was so trapped within himself and his childhood. So I was glad that he was being so light and free with himself, even if I missed him terribly.

"Two weeks," Heero's voice sounded very sure and certain, as though he had made the decision, but in making it he'd turned it into a rule or a law that couldn't be broken. He remarked to me once, sitting in the window seat, naked, just as the dusk light was fading to the darkness of night after the sunset, that I was his one addiction, and that he couldn't let himself get too close to me because then he'd never be able to get away. I very much believe him, and not only because Heero is always so serious about everything.

I had to, you see, because he was the same thing to me.

But that's what our last meeting was like, and it was almost six years ago, now that I think about it.

The phone call this time wasn't much different. I picked up the phone and was greeted with the familiar near-monotone voice speaking the same familiar and beloved phrase, slightly altered, "I need to see you."

His voice is almost desperate, it seems, and as I listened to him without any reply ready, he said, "Duo? You are there, right?"

"Uh, yes."

"Haven't replaced me? I know it's been a while."

"No, Heero."

I hear a relieved sigh and then there's silence for a long moment. "So where should I meet you?" I asked after I felt the pause had begun to drag out past all usefulness.

"Actually, I was going to come to you."

My heart speeds up as he says that. "You're coming here?"

"Room for me there?"

Glancing needlessly around my living room I answer immediately, "Of course there's room for you, anytime you want to impose on me, you know I'm waiting."

He hesitates and then says, "I'll see you tomorrow," before hanging up the phone.

And so I'm sitting here, in a daze.


	2. II

**Title: **Separation [2/?]  
**Genre:** GW  
**Pairings:** 1x2  
**Rating:** PG

**A/N:** At first I wasn't sure this would get a second part, but it's got one now.

***

Sometimes he says we'll see each other in a few days, sometimes a week, sometimes an hour. I'm very nervous as to what he'll think of me now, in six years I must've changed, if not particularly in height then in personality or maturity, I bet. What I told him on the phone was mostly true. I haven't replaced him.

I haven't been celibate without him, but I haven't replaced him. No one's even come close to whatever I have with him. Now whether that's because I'm not entirely sure what the two of us have or because there just will never be another Heero Yuy, I don't know.

One thing's for sure, no one is exactly like him. I'm not sure what it is that makes him so individualistic and unique, but I know that I, for one, can't get enough of him. It's the little things, too…

He's the best sex I've ever had, but not because he's any larger than any of the other lovers I've had, or because he's any more inventive or anything… there's just something about him. I'm not sure what it is, his strength, his scent, the intensity buried in those cobalt eyes when he looks at me…

Or the fact that I really and truly am in love with him.

*

It is always the same.

I try to deny myself the truth, I try… to be who everyone in the world thinks I should be, who they want me to be, but… I can't do it. And, inevitably, I always come back and fall into his arms again. And this time it is no different.

Except that I'm going to him, and not making him come to me. Except that now I know there's no use denying what I've been feeling deep inside, and that I really am going to have to just bite the bullet and admit to myself, and to him… that I love him.

The worst part is that I'm afraid of what is going to happen when I tell him. Something about whatever we have between us was that it was never based on words. From that first time, back when we were still fighting in the gundams… it wasn't about any pretenses, or about saying things that would only hurt and hinder us in the world we were forced into.

It feels like now I'm going to be turning things around completely and making this all into something that it's never been. I remember… the only time he ever asked me about it…

It was late one evening after he'd rushed over to see me. I'd called him and he'd sounded so relieved on the phone to hear my voice, now that I think back on it, it was after the first war had ended and I had just walked out of the room the morning after the last time we'd been together, without a trace and without a note.

I was laying sprawled with my head buried in the crook of his neck and he was peacefully tangling his fingers in my ever-messy hair. "Heero," he said quietly.

I didn't respond, and so he continued to talk. He knew I wouldn't respond.

"I know you're awake, and listening. Heero… what are we?"

I didn't bother to answer his question, but I pressed my lips against his neck and started teasing him. After a moment of stillness he responded with a grin and a whisper in my ear, "Insatiable, I guess."

It's the only time I ever recall him mentioning anything about what we were to each other… or loving each other. It's like it's always been an unspoken rule that we don't say that word, for various and deeply personal reasons that we never talk about. It's hard to when we starve… I starve us of each other so that for the first part of our reunions it's all about touching and feeling that we're alive to one another.

I don't suspect it'll be much different this time, except that, for once, I'm going to go to him. I wonder what my first glimpse of him will be. Probably answering the door.


	3. III

**Title: **Separation [2/?]  
**Genre:** GW  
**Pairings:** 1x2  
**Rating:** PG

**A/N:** So if I didn't think there was going to be a second part, I really didn't think there was going to be a third part. But there is in this case too.

***

There is a knock on the door. I nearly jump out of my skin. Why didn't whoever it is use the doorbell… unless… I leap to my feet and nearly run to the door.

And there he is.

My heart, beating a thousand miles a minute, seems to calm for a moment as we take each other in. He's gotten a little taller. He was always taller than I was, but now he seems to have pulled away from me in the height department, like his body decided to stop playing games with me and just grew taller so that it would be decisive that he was taller, no hands down. His eyes, still two cobalt jewels in his tan, smooth face, but there's something… deeper in them now.

That makes me blink, and I realize how long we must've been standing here, just staring at one another, and I step back to let him into the house. He steps inside, and takes off his shoes, leaving them by his suitcase, which he kneels next to and retrieves a pair of slippers from.

Still in the same tanktop and jeans, and I get a good look at his maintained physique. Chisled, I believe, is the word I used when breaking my plans with… Heero turns with a faint smile on his face and I can't even remember the guy's name.

I reach over with one hand and manage to lock the front door before Heero and I lunge at each other, arms entangling as we kiss each other almost violently.

*

He seems… much more relaxed than before, as he answers the door, but I heard a few of the quick footfalls that let me know he raced himself to the door to answer it. I had hoped he would remember I don't use doorbells very often, I suppose this means that he did. We stand there, eyes appraising one another. He hasn't gotten much taller, his smile is the same, slightly nervous smile it always is. He's shy about 'checking me out' as he calls it, but remembers that I don't mind it, I guess.

And then, as though something about me is shocking, he gives a little cough and stands back so that I can enter the house he's made his own. I check out the furnishings as I kneel to get out of my shoes and into a pair of slippers, and then I stand to face him.

It seems like it's only been moments since the last time I saw him, and, almost as one, we come together, lips first, arms winding around each other, bodies pressing up against one another. He's gotten a bit stronger, I can feel it in his arms, and then all rational though ceases as he edges us towards the living room, hands already tugging my tank top out of my jeans.

We break the kiss for air and I chuckle, whispering, "Definitely insatiable," into his ear before he breaks into a grin and shoves me playfully onto the couch.

I relax under him, and capture the end of his braid with one hand, pulling the band off of it and letting it unravel up his back. In response, he divests me of my tank top with a smirk. After a few more minutes of fevered touching, he settles down on top of me, his cheek pressed against my now-bare chest.

My eyes close halfway and I feel sleep threatening, but I fight it.

"It's good that you're here," he says quietly, "I missed you."

He never said that before.

*

Broken rituals. Normally we christen the bedroom the minute we see each other, but not this time. Normally, I wouldn't say how much I truly miss him, because it used to scare him. He said that to me the first night when we lay wound around one another, and he told me secrets that he felt about me. Nothing embarrassing, nothing deeply personal, just observations that I could call pillow talk if I liked, or could ignore if I chose.

I remember every word of that conversation, half-asleep and worn out as I was.

We collapsed, as one, the tension draining from our bodies like an explosion, and he panted a few times before sliding out of me. I remember being quite proud that _I_ had been able to wear _him_ out. He wrapped his arms firmly, possessively around my chest and buried his face in my hair.

"I have a mission in the morning," he said in a clear, sharp, unmuffled voice.

"I know," I responded, "so do I."

I wanted to ask him a million things. One of the first and foremost being 'why now? Why me?' but I didn't. He spoke again, "Your hair," he took a deep breath of it, and I felt a little self-conscious, "it did me in."

His words were a slight shock to me, and his voice was so monotonous, so cold, that I wanted to push him away, a little. I didn't, knew I couldn't, didn't have the strength at that moment to do so, but I imagined myself doing it. Making a scene, waking the room next door and getting us in trouble with the RD of the dormitory for… obvious reasons.

"My hair?"

"Mmm… utskushi," he murmured in his own tongue. It sounded, wonderful and exciting to hear him say that about my hair, I loved every second of the evening with him.

"Don't," he cut my next thoughts off, "don't start something we can't finish."

It made me a little cold when he said that, and I tried to turn my head slightly from him, but with his face buried in my hair, I couldn't do that. The best I managed was an inch or two getting my cheekbone away from him. He took that opportunity to nibble on my neck and remind me of what had just happened.

As though I could forget something like that.

Heero, I decided in that moment, did everything with the same intensity, the same passion, once he had decided on it. After a short pause, I had to smile, realizing that he had decided on me, and he had 'done' me with intensity and passion.

"Your smile," his voice was low, "brightens your face."

He hauled himself effortlessly up so that our noses were nearly touching, and his eyes searched my half-lidded ones before he kissed me deeply, raking through my mouth with his tongue, as he pulled back to breathe, he added, "Sweet."

If I had been any more awake, I would have been turning crimson at all his praise. Something told me he was going to go on, perhaps to kiss me again, or to revive my weary body into a state of taught arousal and relieve me of the energy, but he settled back down, face in the hollow of my shoulder, and said, "Sleep, we have a mission tomorrow."

All I remember of the morning after was that we disentangled ourselves and very professionally took separate showers and went on our missions without saying much, which was usual for us on mission days. The only difference was that I felt luxuriantly relaxed.

Before going to get in my gundam, I turned to Heero with a single question that struck me suddenly. He looked at me with innocent cobalt eyes and said, "Yes Duo?"

"Did you… I mean… just so that I'd be relaxed?"

The two of us were on the very edge of campus, in fact, we were standing before the stone wall that marked off the edge of the on-limits part of the forest, and he stopped, turning to me with his eyes narrowed.

"Don't, Duo," he said simply one arm shooting out to grab me by the jaw and he tugged me forward to kiss me deeply, as deeply as he had the night before when he told me that I tasted sweet. As he withdrew, leaving me staring at him, knees a little weak and the beginnings of an arousal, he sprang up to balance easily on the point of the wall and said, "And, no, that's not why," before he leapt down and took off into the woods towards wherever he'd hidden his gundam.

I had to stop and catch my breath a moment before I could hop over the wall and make my way to my own gundam. I still felt relaxed, but something, perhaps it was about the way he left, or the state he left me in, made me expectant. Still, I was grinning like a madman by the time I got to Deathscythe, and it wasn't for a few hours, until I was waiting for the train, that the anxiety for him hit.

He self destructed on that mission.


	4. IV

**Title: **Separation [4/?]  
**Genre:** GW  
**Pairings:** 1x2  
**Rating:** PG

**A/N:**I've given up having expectations on how long this story will be, and just started letting it be how long it wants to. So here's part 4, and part 5 is being written as we speak.

***

Heero fell asleep on the couch a little while ago, and for the last ten minutes I've been laying here with my ear pressed against his chest, my body limp, letting the rise and fall of his chest lull me out of conscious thought. But now I can hear his stomach complaining at him, and mine at me in response, and so I slip very carefully out of his lax grip on my waist and head into the kitchen.

As I make something to eat I glance into the living room at him.

I wonder how long he'll stay. There is something in me wanting him not to go at all.

As the food finishes cooking, I realize he's turned slightly, and is stirring as he realizes I've gone from my comfortable spot on top of him.

"Duo?" his voice, for a moment, sounds lost and childlike as he calls to me. I've never heard him vulnerable to anyone else. Not like that.

I drop the wooden spoon I'm using to stir the soup when I hear it, and lean out into the doorway to the other room. "Right here, Heero."

His eyes, as they meet mine, relax, for a moment I can see tension in them, and then its gone, and he's just staring at me, devouring me with his eyes.

*

Dinner is quiet between us. It always is when it is just the two of us dining. Duo doesn't need to fill the air with words when there's only me to hear them, and I don't need him to. Other people, I've found, get unnerved by a silent Duo. I have a feeling that he enjoys the silence as much as he ever enjoyed talking, and he seems to be more at peace when he isn't forced to come up with the entire conversation.

"Heero…" I look up, and find his eyes are intently on me as we're both finishing up the meal, plates nearly empty, wine glasses the same.

"Hai, Duo?" I always revert back to my native language when I get nervous, something I'm still not sure if he's bothered to pick up on.

*

Dinner was quiet, but then meals between the two of us often are, when we're alone. During the war, when other people were around, I always felt the need to talk, to cover the silence with words. But when it is just the two of us, I can be calm, and quiet. There's something I've been wondering, though, and I'm half afraid to say a word about it.

He's nervous as I speak up, and so I reach over and lay my hand across his. He doesn't start, at least not physically, but I can see it in him that I'm making him a little uncomfortable. It's something I have to know, though, and so I press on.

"Where have you been?"

I swallow, once, twice. I hadn't expected this question, or at least not so soon after my arrival. I glance at the clock, at my wineglass, and the last few morsels of food on my plate in order to avoid his eyes. Those beautiful, merciless eyes of his. He said once that after so long of claiming not to lie, he's gotten to the point where he can't. When he looks at me, I can't either. The hand covering mine squeezes once and Duo stands, gathering our plates and heading over to the sink.

"It's all right, I suppose I shouldn't have asked it," he speaks with his back turned from me and I stand up abruptly, almost knocking my chair over.

"No."

*

Unchecked, the chair hits the floor. My hands pause in the dish water and I turn to look at him slightly, my hair still loose down my back. "What?"

"No," he repeats.

"Heero?" I glance at him, but he's crossed to stand behind me, and he gently puts his hands on my shoulders, guiding my hair to fall in a single mass down my back.

"I don't want things to be that way." I drop the dish from my hands, and with a watery thunk it hits the sink.

"Don't want things to be what way?" I can hear the tightness, anxiousness in my own voice. This is something we never do, I never push, he never says anything about how many questions I have that go unanswered. His hands tighten a little on my shoulders and he leans forward, pressing his forehead against the back of my neck. I can feel him breathing in my hair and his next words are a little mumbled.

"I don't want you to wonder anymore."

*

They were the hardest words I've ever said to him, but I know that they are also the truest. Carefully, he swivels in my grip so that my drooping head is pressed against his chest instead of his back. Hesitantly he lifts dripping hands to my chin and tilts my head up. For a long moment he studies my face, and I let him, inhaling the mingled scent of dish soap, a tangy lemon, with his own scent, something darker. And then he speaks.

"So," his eyes are kind, but there is something almost fearful in them as he continues, "Just where were you, Heero?"

I open my mouth to answer, but before I can, he leans forward and kisses me, keeping my face locked in place with his gentle hands, and before long the question is forgotten, left behind in the kitchen with a few discarded articles of clothing, while the two of us progress towards the bedroom.

The only other times I've ever let him get away with asking me questions was in my sleep.

He always thought I was a sound sleeper, after the wars ended, but old habits die hard in that respect. It usually only takes him rolling out of my arms, or shifting position for me to wake up, and whenever he speaks, I'm compelled to listen. The most memorable time, I think, was the night before I left six years ago. He must've sensed something about my actions, something that only he _could _sense, that told him I would be gone for a long while.

**

I was lying on my stomach, and he worked his way out from underneath me. Carefully, he leaned down and lay himself across my back, pressing his cheek to my spine. I almost fell back asleep, he's a fitful sleeper and oftentimes changes position, but then he spoke.

"I don't know why… but I know you're going." He ran feather light strokes of his fingertips along my back, tracing muscles very lightly, reminiscently, "And I'm not quite sure where, but… I'm pretty sure that this may be the last time I'll see you. Well," he added absently, as though about to say something else, but he stopped, and then said something else. "Where is it that you go when you're not with me, Heero?"

I found it hard to keep up the appearance of sleep.

"Is there someone else… that you run to?" He seemed to consider that question seriously, his hands paused on my back, and then he answered his own question, "No, I'm most certain that you don't have someone else… no one serious, at least. If you even get serious," I thought that was a quibble about me, but then he whispered something else, "If you even get serious… I know that you're serious about me."

I almost broke the charade of being asleep right there, and I was almost scared enough to lie and say that I was seeing someone else. I almost messed up having him there for me, but I didn't. He settled himself more firmly against my back, as though he were painted on, like he could fuse our skin together, and placed a kiss on my shoulder blade before he continued, "It was like this then, too, that first time. You were just as passionate, and as hot as you were tonight. I thought you were trying to hurt me, but there was also something very tender in your actions. When you touch me… I don't feel afraid anymore." He bit his lip and smoothed the hollow between my shoulder blades with his cheek. "I'm not… afraid to die anymore, Heero." Laying his head down against my spine, he let himself fall back asleep after that. I stayed up a long while, wondering how he knew I was going, when I myself had barely been aware of my intentions before the moment he voiced them.

**

There have been others, though. I can remember a conversation we had once, at a rare moment when the fighting had paused, and neither of us had a mission. My life was so driven by the mission that he simply became wrapped up as another part of it for a long time. When I had no mission, I was sullen, idle, and angry, it kept Quatre from working too closely with me most of the time, and the lack of control made spending time with me like going to a women's clothing store for Wufei. Trowa could handle me, but he never managed to improve my mood. The only person I could really stand to be around, in any way, was Duo. At the time, I wondered to myself if it was only because it made him conveniently accessible to me, but some time after I rescued him from that jail cell… I figured out that it was more than that.

I fought myself a lot about him, after I realized that he was more than just convenient. Little things I remember, times when we were alone and I wasn't angry at being listless and without occupation, stick out in my mind. He's curled up against me in his queen sized bed, the covers around us are nesting, and despite the warmth lingering in the air, and the sweat on his brow, and mine, I tug the covers up over us.

His face, in repose, is the same way that I always remember it. It's been the same since we were fifteen. I've only recently come to accept that I made it to twenty-eight, and that there are people alive that have known me as long as he has. The tick of the bedside clock catches my attention, one of the few noises in the room, aside from his gentle breathing, my eyes stray to it.

Four in the morning. I've been here since sometime after five. He stirs slightly and his eyes open to gaze at me, "Still awake?"

"Hai," I say quietly, smoothing his hair.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," comes my quick reply. "Just thinking."

Duo nods, sleepily, and shifts his position, turning to lay on half the bed, a little away from me. He can always sense when I need a little separation. And this is definitely one of those times. I knew when I came here that it was for good. I knew that walking through the door would mean never going back, but some little doubt of him, and if he'd changed after so many years apart. People have grown apart in less time, and together in more.

But no, as far as I can tell, he's still the same as he was when I last saw him. A little older, a little harder - both his body and his outlook, I think. Taxes would do that to someone, a job, a house… things I avoided that he's embraced. He never had the stringent training that I had before becoming a pilot, so he's learning such things, the kind taught by discipline and attention to detail, that I learned the hard way.

I wish life could've been the thing to teach me those things, and not Dr. J. I wish I could've learned them… with him.

My eyes stray over to him, the outline of his body under the sheets and blankets, the slightly tangled cascade of hair disappearing down beneath the sheets. He's kept that, since I knew him then, just as he's kept me. The idea of such a ridiculous pair of possessions being so important to him is a little disconcerting, but comforting and very Duo as well.

I can still remember the conversation that made his words so important to me, that night six years ago, when he said, 'I'm not afraid to die anymore, Heero.' It was during the first war, before the little girl rose to power, and before I blew up the falling star… I don't remember where we were, or what had happened just before then, I just know that the two of us were there, and… it was before I had taken him for the first time, before I claimed him…

**

Duo reclined on the bed.

"What would you do if you could do anything in the world right now?"

I lay down next to him.

"Duo, do you ever wonder what would happen if you died in the morning? Like if you didn't wake up and never opened your eyes again?"

"No."

"I do."

"Why's that?"

"I am afraid that I'll live my life and never know what it means to be human. Sometimes I step out of myself and realize that there isn't anything I can do about my training now, not by myself. I'm afraid… to die, like this, Duo. And when I feel the weight of that fact, I understand that I'm never going to feel comfortable with anyone."

"What about me?"

I pondered a moment. "Other than you."

Duo settled more completely into the soft mattress. "At least I know that much," he said, closing his eyes.

"What do you mean by that?"

Duo glanced at me, a sidelong query. "It's good to know that we're friends at least. I wasn't really sure, before."

I did not respond, but my hand wandered across the space between them to take Duo's. Duo flushed slightly, and turned his head to stare at me, I felt him move on the mattress, but he only found that his companion's eyes were closed. He turned his own head back to look up at the ceiling. "We're all scared of that, Heero, every one of us. I know… I know I am. I may act tough about it, call myself 'The God of Death' and all that… but it's more of a curse than I make it out to be. I call myself that because it seems to me that death follows me like I'm a plague. I've never really known how to be ashamed of myself… so I decided I might as well be proud of it."

"But…" he continued, and I listened raptly, opening my eyes to watch his profile as he spoke, "I'm just as scared of dying without… any meaning as you are. It's… I guess it's why I fight so hard. I want to know that when I'm gone, someone's life will have been impacted by mine." He chuckled softly to himself. "That's silly, isn't it?"

I didn't respond.

**

Right before I claimed him.

I hadn't thought that any of them could really understand how I felt, and yet, in those few minutes, Duo had opened up to me and told me just how similar we all really were. More importantly, how similar the two of us were, and, I felt, by not yanking his hand out of mine, he was telling me something else too. And so, following the only sound advice I'd ever gotten from Odin Lowe, I did just what he'd told me to.

I acted on my emotions.

Staring at him now, in the darkness, one pale, bare shoulder exposed to the slight chill of the room, his soft, wonderful hair between us, tickling my skin, I let my fingers tangle in his hair a little. I have not regretted a minute of what happened since that day.

And that's why, now that I know how to live, I intend to live what time I have with him.


End file.
